


Kindness Received

by still_lycoris



Category: X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Movies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 12:57:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15292020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: Erik does not appreciate Magda's kindness. Not at first.





	Kindness Received

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Gratitude](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9165247) by [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/pseuds/Unforgotten). 
  * In response to a prompt by [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/pseuds/Unforgotten) in the [xmen_remix_madness2018](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/xmen_remix_madness2018) collection. 



When Erik woke, he half-wished that he hadn’t.

He was alive but he felt half-dead. And feeling half-dead was a good way to get yourself _entirely_ dead in his experience. He was furious with himself. Furious that he had let himself get into this state. Furious that he had let himself become like a pitiful wounded dog.

Furious that someone had him at their mercy.

“You are awake.”

He glared at the woman who stood beside the bed he was in, trying to summon up the energy to do something. To sit up. To stand up. To show her that he was without fear, that he was strong and that she could do nothing to him.

His body did not oblige him. In fact, his body did nothing except manage the most pitiful shiver and that made him ache.

“You mustn’t try to get up,” the woman said, her voice annoyingly calm. “You fell and hit your head – though I think that was merely the last in a long line of your troubles.”

“I’m _fine_.” A lie and a pathetic one. She could see how thin he was, how dirty, how his beard was unkempt. She doubtless thought he was simply a homeless man who had fallen on hard times during this hard winter, who had been thinking of begging before he had collapsed.

“No, you are not,” she said. “You are weak. You need help.”

_Help?_ From _her?_ A _human?_

(he knew she was a human. He just did. His own kind simply felt different to him, almost like the different types of metal did when they vibrated under his power. She had no power. She was nothing.)

“I don’t need anything from you,” he said, forcing his arms to push himself upright, ignoring the pain that shot through them, the way his back trembled and legs throbbed in protest. He managed to hold himself up for all of three seconds before collapsing back down, gasping for breath.

“Don’t be a fool!” she said and her kind voice was sharp now. “You will not even make it out of the garden. You may wish to die but I do not wish you to die on my doorstep!”

“Don’t you now?” he rasped. God, his throat ached. “Don’t you know who I am?”

“I do not care who you are.”

“I am a mutant,” he said, trying to inject the pride into his voice that the words deserved. They simply sounded weary to his own ears.

She smiled slightly.

“You clearly do not have powers that protect you from the cold of the snow.”

“No. My power is with metal. My name is Erik Lehnsherr.”

He waited to see her reaction, her disgust, her fear. He had seen himself on the news, he had seen what they had said, what they had written. They might be pretending (they _were_ pretending) that Mystique’s actions had won her a place in their hearts but they made no such pretence about _him_. No, this woman knew what he was, what he had done. She had doubtless watched it a thousand times.

Did her face pale slightly? He wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was just his vision. He was feeling cloudy. He had used his energy unwisely. She wasn’t running though. She wasn’t shouting or reaching for a weapon. She was simply standing there still, watching him with those damn dark eyes of hers.

“You should rest,” she said and her voice was still calm. “My name is Magda.”

“I don’t care,” he said, struggling for a weapon, anything to see what she really was. “I don’t care about you. I don’t care about women. My last lover was a man. I let him fuck me. Do you know what that’s like? I put my mouth on him more times than you could imagine. Doesn’t that disgust you?”

It was not entirely the truth. He found himself thinking how Charles would scold him for it. He had no preference between men and women. Perhaps that would disgust this Magda even more than thinking he was only interested in men. She might think she was safe from him now, safe from diabolical lusts ...

Somewhere in the midst of his increasingly rambling thoughts, he passed out.

When he woke again, Magda was still there. 

She had not smothered him as he slept. 

She hadn’t called the police. 

She had not betrayed him.

In a strange way, it made him even more angry. How dared she? How could she be so stupid? Didn’t she see what he was? What he could do to her? _Would_ do to her once he wasn’t so weak that even trying to move a nail left him shaking?

Didn’t she understand how the world was supposed to work?

Evidently, she did not.

“You’re a very stupid woman,” he informed her as she pulled up a chair and began to spoon-feed him broth.

“Perhaps,” she said, still so calm. “But I did not fall into a hole in someone else’s garden.”

He decided to swallow the liquid just so he didn’t have to say anything to that.

*

She continued not to understand.

She showed no fear. She showed no disgust, even when he told her that he needed to piss. She ignored his anger when she touched him to check his pulse, to see if he would lose his toes to frostbite. She shrugged off mocking comments that he made.

She continued to show no signs of betraying him.

It was confusing.

Erik found himself watching her. The way she carried herself. The way she walked. She always kept her hair back from her face in a ponytail, even though it wasn’t very long. She was quite graceful, poised. She was practical.

She was beautiful.

The thought came unbidden to his mind and it made him angry. What did it matter what she was beautiful? She was a human. She was an enemy, even if she refused to behave like one. It was a bad idea to think about the beauty of one’s enemies – or even ones allies. Had he not learned that from Charles and Mystique? That it only led to more pain and weakness when you could not afford it?

And yet she was beautiful all the same.

She was beautiful and she was kind and she was all the things that he knew that he could never have.

He didn’t want to want those things. He could not afford to want those things.

But he wanted just the same.

*

When she bathed him, he gave in to it.

He knew that it was a risk, letting her bath him. Knew that his body longed for touch. The last time had been ... so long. God, so _long_. Even if he hadn’t desired her, his body would have reacted. And with this new, treacherous need that was growing within him ... it was almost inevitable.

Perhaps it was his last test. Magda had withstood hate and anger and insults. Could she withstand want? Desire? Need?

God, he needed.

And God, when she kissed him, it was like being set on fire.

He wanted her. He wanted to drag her down on top of him, touch every inch of her. He wanted to push her onto the floor, straddle her, make her scream. He wanted to make her feel like he felt, burn like he burned. He hated that he was still so weak. He hated ...

She kissed him sweetly, skin soft beneath his aching hands. Then she dropped to his lap, engulfed him with her mouth and oh, it had been so long and it was so wonderful to _feel_ and her hair was silky over his thighs and her shoulders moved with her and her body and everything, everything about her was beautiful and he could feel himself falling in love with her in that moment and he didn’t care.

“This is madness,” he told her afterwards when he had come and he had made her come, hand between her legs, exploring every part of her, loving the way she gasped and squirmed against him without shame.

“Why?” she asked.

There were so many answers, he knew that. He was a wanted man, he could never be safe no matter what. He was a mutant, she was not. He had done so many things and she ... he doubted she had ever hurt anyone they way he had.

But she was warm in his arms and her hands was stroking his hair and he felt more alive than he had in months. He didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want to think about the future.

He wanted to live.

So he wrapped his arms tighter around her, pressed his head against her shoulder and let himself forget.


End file.
